Head of School Report
The past 2 years have been marked by increased growth in student numbers. The table detailed
in the Faculty Manager’s Report shows this growth to be 34% over the period. Note that these
figures cannot be regarded as absolute until the Census date for Semester 2. They include the
students we have incorporated as part of the Cengage teachout, but do not include the students
that we have acquired in OHS&E through OUA. The figure is all the more remarkable because
it has occurred at the moment of deregulation of enrolments, which has created a tough
competitive environment.
Of more immediate interest, we have hit our growth target for this year. One of the features of
the Faculty and School of Business is that we have a relatively large midyear intake and
meeting the target by the middle of the year rather than at the beginning is likely to be normal
for us into the future.
The Curriculum Review
The Curriculum review is coming to its conclusion, with reports being compiled by the Chairs of
each of the working parties and a process on SharePoint of the construction of the two master
documents that will go through the Curriculum Review Committee (the curriculum review
instantiation of FLTC) to our Faculty Board and then to the University’s Academic Board in the
new year. Changes will be adopted at academic board for implementation in 2014. Along with
this process, Professor Ciro is developing our re-accreditation submission in Accounting,
Professor Kramar will soon be developing our re-accreditation submission for AHRI, Professor
Dann will be developing an initial bid for accreditation with AMI and Professor Bowen-James will
be developing a re-accreditation proposal to the ACS.
Teaching Evaluation
Semester 1 finished with the first use of online teaching evaluations. These will occur for every
unit, every time it is delivered. The response rate across the university averaged 40%. The
performance of our staff was generally solid.
SUOs
Thanks to all staff for the SUO process. This semester we finished all the SUOs in a timely
manner, so that they were all up on LEO and ready for the students before the beginning of
term. A special thank you to the DMC committee secretaries, who worked especially hard to
achieve this result. While they operated with good grace, my reflection is that we owe it to them
to be diligent with deadlines and detail. Every time someone needs to be chased or something
needs to be fixed, extra work is created for the secretaries.
Workforce Planning
Over the coming month, the Dean, ADLT and I will be undergoing a workforce planning exercise
for the next five years. This will involve projecting our programs into the future and identifying
gaps in a capability that need to be filled with new hires. The main capacity constraint that we
face is the availability of staff, so this process is of primary importance to our growth plans.
Sydney School of Business Report
New Appointments – Sydney School of Business
The School of Business in North Sydney welcomes two new appointees. Maria Bruzzese will
take over the role Receptionist/Administrator. Marie comes to us after a career which has
included similar appointments at Sydney University and the University of Technology, Sydney.
Jenny Sellier has been acting in the role of personal assistant to the Head of School for some
months, before she contested and won the position on a continuing basis.